Halloween: The First Death Of Laurie Strode #1 (of 3) – Review

By Stefan Hutchinson (writer), Jeff Zornow (pencils), Nick Filardi (colors), Ed Dukeshire (letters), Sean K Dove (design), Scott Hampton, Tim Seeley, Ryan Browne (alternate covers)

The Story: In the wake of the Haddonfield Massacre (from the first movie), Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis’ character) is trying to deal with a number of problems. First, her long lost brother Michael is an indestructible killing machine who wants her dead. Second, she’s coming to terms with the fact that her life is a lie; her adopted parents never told her the truth about the aforementioned boogieman. Wrap all this up in a traumatized teenage girl and that’s Laurie Strode.

Lately, Laurie’s been feeling a pull to get out of Haddonfield. Let’s hope (for her sake) that it pulls a little harder.

What’s Good? The book does a good job of recreating the domestic feel of Halloween when Michael isn’t around. Another plus is the imagery. I say imagery and not pencils because I like the essence of what’s being implied more than what’s “just on the page”.

Most of the effort goes into making Michael look good, so his mask and jumpsuit look great and have the appropriate lack of detail. Everything else is left in the cold as far as that’s concerned which is a shame since Michael isn’t actually involved in most of the book. But, seeing Michael’s face in the clouds during the cemetery scene is a great shot. Even in “death” he’ll always be there, a permanent shadow over Laurie’s life.

What’s Not So Good? Yes, they’ve nailed the parts without Michael Myers – it’s commendable – but those were also the boring parts of the movie(s). If he’s not there to stare and setup tension, or kill, it’s just kids sitting around unaware. What’s more disappointing is the overall feel of the issue. How many of us bought this book based on the title? My guess is nine out of ten readers would be fans of the films. As such, Stefan Hutchinson could have spent the majority of this time jumping into the story instead of using a full book to recap the first and second movie.

Conclusion: It’s an interesting concept for fans of the Halloween series – if you ever wanted to know the details of how Laurie died. To learn more than the one sentence reason given as to why Laurie isn’t in Halloween 4, 5,and 6, this book seems to be the place to go. There are two issues left to explain how she gets the idea to fake her death. Unfortunately, since there is so little movement in this issue, I have my doubts that everything will get wrapped up neatly.

(Grade: D)

-Ben Berger

A Second Opinion

I’m not sure what to think of this story since it seems like it may contradict Halloween IV. But there’s definitely some merit in this story and it could, if written cleverly enough, fit into film continuity. As far as first issues go, this one’s par for the course, chock full of setup and a too much exposition.

Laurie’s narrative is lifeless and wooden, which in a way, almost feels natural after the events she’s just been through. On the other hand, the dialogue and interplay between characters feels much more natural with the exception of one scene involving clunky excerpts from a diary. The art is a mixed bag, too. Pedestrian scenes are poorly drawn while the nightmarish montages ooze with creepiness.

All in all, this is a decent start to the series, I just hated the surprise reappearance of Loomis at the end. Talk about feeling way too forced and coincidental. This book also needs more consistency on all fronts.

Grade: C-

- J. Montes